At least 10 persons including children dead in Philippines landslide

At least ten people were killed when a landslide hit a house in the southern Philippines on Thursday, a disaster official said, with the death toll expected to rise.

According to Ednar Dayanghirang, the regional chief of the government’s Office of Civil Defense, two persons were injured and at least one more villager was missing after a landslide in a remote mountain village in the gold-mining town of Monkayo in Davao de Oro province.

Three more bodies were found Friday, after the search was paused mid-afternoon Thursday due to the risk of another landslide.

People living near the community were told to leave owing to concerns about more land and mudslides caused by periodic downpours, according to Monkayo Mayor Manuel Zamora.

Days of severe rain also inundated low-lying villages, displacing almost 36,000 people in Davao de Oro and three other provinces, according to the Office of Civil Defense. Some locations saw the weather clear up on Friday.

The rains were caused by a shear line, which is a place where warm and cold air meet. Every year, at least 20 storms and typhoons hit the Philippine archipelago, particularly during the rainy season, which begins in June.

Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful on record, killed or displaced about 7,300 people in the central Philippines in 2013, flattening entire communities, sweeping ships inland, and displacing more than 5 million.